Parking Tickets

THE PROBLEM -- Delivery trucks and construction vehicles routinely block the left lane of Calvert Street north of Pratt Street near Baltimore's Inner Harbor. This narrows a central route into downtown and causes traffic problems, sometimes backing cars onto Interstate 395 during the morning rush hour. THE BACKSTORY -- There are several no-parking and no-stopping signs along Calvert Street between Pratt and Baltimore streets, warning that illegally parked vehicles will be towed. The traffic problem is made worse by construction that takes up a lane of Calvert Street in that area.

NATIONAL Bush speaks in Southern Md. President Bush marked Labor Day at a union-operated maritime training center in Southern Maryland, telling mariners that he was striving to keep U.S. workers competitive by enacting permanent tax cuts, pressing to end dependence on foreign oil and preparing workers for 21st-century jobs. pg 1a Fast-food meals' many calories Most people underestimate the number of calories in fast-food meals, a big problem as portion sizes have ballooned, a new study has found.

Iwent to parking court this week to battle for justice, to preserve my honor and to avoid coughing up $52. Rather than hiring a lawyer, I served as my own advocate. My courtroom performance did not go exactly as I planned. It's safe to say I represent no threat to the livelihood of lawyers. At issue was whether I parked too close to a fire hydrant at the corner of Park Avenue and Mosher Street, a few doors away from my home. The ticket placed on my station wagon said I had failed to give the hydrant at least 15 feet leeway.

Parks bureau names new chief Hashawha Park manager Brad Rogers has been promoted to chief of the Bureau of Parks, effective Jan. 25. He moves into a vacancy created by the promotion of his predecessor Jeff Degitz to director of the Department of Recreation and Parks following Richard Soisson's retirement. A graduate of Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College, Rogers, 35, has worked for the Carroll County Department of Recreation and Parks since 2001. He lives in Sykesville. Rogers will oversee the operations of the county's parks, including Hashawha Environmental Center, Piney Run Park and the Hap Baker Firearms Facility.

As if it's not annoying enough to pay a parking ticket the first time, thousands of Annapolis-area residents are being incorrectly charged late fees because of a record-keeping mix-up. The trouble started earlier this year when the city switched the companies it used to process parking tickets. City officials say the old company, Complus Data Innovations of Tarrytown, N.Y., failed to turn over about 45 days worth of records to its successor, Citation Management of Milwaukee. Complus officials deny withholding any information.

Troubled by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s fondness for fees -- including a $30 charge for each of the nearly 1 million times a year a Marylander fails to pay a parking or traffic ticket on time -- lawmakers grilled administration officials yesterday about whether a series of proposed higher charges for government services were tax increases in disguise. House Ways and Means Committee members tried to determine if several state agencies intend to recoup the cost of specific services through new or higher fees, or are looking instead to generate extra cash to help balance the state budget.

Every weekday morning, Gary Hardesty joins hundreds of other commuters at the Odenton MARC station in a long game of hurry-up-and-wait. Hardesty, an Army Corps of Engineers restoration manager, leaves his Ellicott City home at 5:30 a.m. so that he can park at the Odenton MARC station by 6:05 a.m., then does the crossword puzzle as he waits for the 7:19 a.m. train to Washington. "I wait almost an hour," he said, "but I get a spot every day." It's not crowded trains that bring these commuters to the station before the crack of dawn.

I SHOULD feel renewed today, brothers and sisters. Friday should have been the first day of the rest of my life. Standing in line among the other parking-ticket deadbeats from all over Maryland should have approached spiritual experience - two guys behind me even engaged in a long discussion about Moses and the Promised Land - but it wasn't like that. Not for me. I shouldn't have been there to begin with, see. But I don't want to spoil this column with my own personal grievance with the city of Baltimore.

Thousands more stood in line yesterday to cash in on the city's ticket amnesty program, billed as a once-in-a-decade chance to dodge hefty late fees on unpaid parking tickets. An estimated 34,000 to 40,000 people paid old tickets at money-order outlets around the city over the two-day amnesty period, which began Thursday, said Vassil Nikolov, a manager at Global Express Money Orders. Thousands more settled their debts through the mail and at the Abel Wolman Municipal Building downtown.

Paul Josephson spent hours yesterday poring over a biography of Benjamin Franklin, a man who prided himself on scrupulously settling his debts. Josephson had all that time to read because he was stuck in a line that snaked around a city block - a huge queue of people waiting to pay delinquent parking tickets that had become, like some wines, more expensive with age. The crowd was taking advantage of the first day of a two-day amnesty program, which forgives...